Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday that the U.S. military used a submarine-launched torpedo to sink an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean, the first time an American submarine has registered a torpedo kill against an enemy ship in combat since World War II.
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the fast-attack submarine used a single Mark 48 torpedo to “achieve immediate effect, sending the warship to the bottom of the sea.”
“Quiet death,” Hegseth said while speaking at a news conference at the Pentagon.
The Defense Secretary did not name the Iranian vessel, but it is believed to be the IRIS Dena, a 311-foot moudge-class destroyer.
At least 80 bodies have been recovered by Sri Lankan authorities, the country’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Arun Hemachandra, told local media, via The Washington Post.
Vijith Herath, the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, said the vessel was in distress with about 180 people aboard, some 40 nautical miles off that country's southern coast, according to the government's official news portal. Herath said Sri Lankan forces rescued about 30 people aboard and transported them to a hospital in Galle.
Gen. Caine said the sinking of the ship was an “incredible demonstration of America’s global reach.”
“To hunt, to find, and to kill an out of area deployer is only something the United States can do at this type of scale,” Gen. Caine said.
The Defense Secretary, who earlier in the news conference boasted about the total control U.S. forces established over Iran’s skies, said Naval forces were having similar success on the seas.
“The Iranian Navy rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf,” Hegseth said. “Combat ineffective, decimated, destroyed, defeated, pick your adjective.”
“In fact, last night, we sunk their prized ship, the Solemani,” he added, likely referring to the IRIS Shahid Soleimani.
The 213-foot missile corvette was named for the former head of the IRGC Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in Baghdad by a U.S. drone strike during President Trump's first term in office in January 2020.
In a video posted to social media on Tuesday, Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), said that more than 20 Iranian naval vessels had been destroyed, “including the most operational submarine that now has a hole in its side.”
“For decades, the Iranian regime has harassed international shipping,” Adm. Cooper said. “Today, there is not a single Iranian ship underway in the Arabian Gulf, Straight of Hormuz, or Gulf of Oman. And we will not stop.”